ROWING/World Championships: A win for Sinead Jennings and a second place for Tim Harnedy saw Ireland's two lightweight single scullers safely through to tomorrow's semi-finals at the World Championships for non-Olympic events in Banyoles, Spain, yesterday.
It was almost like old times for Jennings. She needed only to finish in the top three of her repechage, but the world champion of 2001 likes to win and she made up for a slow start with her trademark push for the front, this time from the halfway mark.
By 1,500 metres Jennings had almost a second to spare over Britain's Jo Hammond, with Liliana Niga of Romania following closely in third. Hammond and Niga held their positions and also qualified for tomorrow's semi-finals.
Harnedy needed to finish in the top two of a repechage which featured Ukrainian surprise packet Oleksandr Serdyuk, who had tested eventual winner Peter Ording of Germany in a fast heat on Tuesday.
Serdyuk set the pace in yesterday's race, but Harnedy had made second place his own by halfway. At the end he was three seconds behind Serdyuk, but had over 10 seconds to spare over Spain's Francisco Ramirez Canseco in third.
Ireland's one crew in action today is the lightweight men's quadruple scull, who must finish in the top two of their repechage (11.35 Irish time) to make the A final on Sunday.
"They're a development crew and they're going out to have a go," said Ireland team manager Mick O'Callaghan yesterday.
Germany, who finished second to Canada in Ireland's heat on Tuesday, will be expected to qualify, and Ireland and Spain look likely to be the contenders for the other A final place.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS FOR NON-OLYMPIC AND JUNIOR EVENTS
Banyoles, Spain - Day Two (Irish interest)
Men, Lightweight Single Scull (First Two to Semi-Finals A/B) Repechage One: 1 Poland (P Randa) 7:00.47, 2 Austria (U Daxboeck) 7:03.73. Repechage Two: 1 Ukraine (O Serdyuk) 7:02.08, 2 Ireland (T Harnedy) 7:05.13, 3 Spain (F Ramirez Canesco) 7:15.32, 4 Paraguay (S Cappello Barreto) 7:25.86. Repechage Three: 1 Italy (S Basalini) 7:02.97, 2 Netherlands (C Delis) 7:05.55. Repechage Four: 1 Portugal (L Teixeira Ahrens) 7:07.73, 2 United States (R Montgomery) 7:08.51.
Women, Lightweight Single Scull (First Three to Semi-Finals A/B) Repechage One: 1 Ireland (S Jennings) 7:41.63, 2 Britain (J Hammond) 7:44.81, 3 Romania (L Niga) 7:45.52. Repechage Two: 1 Finland (M Nieminen) 7:49.93, 2 Bulgaria (V Dimitrova) 7:51.59, 3 Sweden (S Karlsson) 7:52.31. Repechage Three: 1 Czech Republic (D Nachazelova) 7:51.12, 2 China (Haixa Chen) 7:51.77, 3 France (A Maddaloni-Gouelle) 7:53.37.
